Thalia   

Psammenitus plotted evil, and received his reward accordingly. He
was discovered to be stirring up revolt in Egypt, wherefore
Cambyses, when his guilt clearly appeared, compelled him to drink
bull's blood, which presently caused his death. Such was the end of
Psammenitus.
After this Cambyses left Memphis, and went to Sais, wishing to
do that which he actually did on his arrival there. He entered the
palace of Amasis, and straightway commanded that the body of the
king should be brought forth from the sepulchre. When the attendants
did according to his commandment, he further bade them scourge the
body, and prick it with goads, and pluck the hair from it, and heap
upon it all manner of insults. The body, however, having been
embalmed, resisted, and refused to come apart, do what they would to
it; so the attendants grew weary of their work; whereupon Cambyses
bade them take the corpse and burn it. This was truly an impious
command to give, for the Persians hold fire to be a god, and never
by any chance burn their dead. Indeed this practice is unlawful,
both with them and with the Egyptians- with them for the reason
above mentioned, since they deem it wrong to give the corpse of a
man to a god; and with the Egyptians, because they believe fire to
be a live animal, which eats whatever it can seize, and then,
glutted with the food, dies with the matter which it feeds upon. Now
to give a man's body to be devoured by beasts is in no wise
agreeable to their customs, and indeed this is the very reason why
they embalm their dead; namely, to prevent them from being eaten in
the grave by worms. Thus Cambyses commanded what both nations
accounted unlawful. According to the Egyptians, it was not Amasis
who was thus treated, but another of their nation who was of about the
same height. The Persians, believing this man's body to be the king's,
abused it in the fashion described above. Amasis, they say, was warned
by an oracle of what would happen to him after his death: in order,
therefore, to prevent the impending fate, he buried the body, which
afterwards received the blows, inside his own tomb near the
entrance, commanding his son to bury him, when he died, in the
furthest recess of the same sepulchre. For my own part I do not
believe that these orders were ever given by Amasis; the Egyptians, as
it seems to me, falsely assert it, to save their own dignity.
After this Cambyses took counsel with himself, and planned three
expeditions. One was against the Carthaginians, another against the
Ammonians, and a third against the long-lived Ethiopians, who dwelt in
that part of Libya which borders upon the southern sea. He judged it
best to despatch his fleet against Carthage and to send some portion
of his land army to act against the Ammonians, while his spies went
into Ethiopia, under the pretence of carrying presents to the king,
but in reality to take note of all they saw, and especially to observe
whether there was really what is called "the table of the Sun" in
Ethiopia.
Now the table of the Sun according to the accounts given of it may
be thus described:- It is a meadow in the skirts of their city full of
the boiled flesh of all manner of beasts, which the magistrates are
careful to store with meat every night, and where whoever likes may
come and eat during the day. The people of the land say that the earth
itself brings forth the food. Such is the description which is given
of this table.
When Cambyses had made up his mind that the spies should go, he
forthwith sent to Elephantine for certain of the Icthyophagi who
were acquainted with the Ethiopian tongue; and, while they were
being fetched, issued orders to his fleet to sail against Carthage.
But the Phoenicians said they would not go, since they were bound to
the Carthaginians by solemn oaths, and since besides it would be
wicked in them to make war on their own children. Now when the
Phoenicians refused, the rest of the fleet was unequal to the
undertaking; and so it was that the Carthaginians escaped, and were
not enslaved by the Persians. Cambyses thought it not right to force